The Bionic Wiki:Current events
Current Events is a centralized spot on the wiki where the community can discuss topics that concern the whole of the wiki. Think of it as a talk page for the entire database. If you want to open up discussion about a particular article, please do so on the Talk: page for that article. Don't forget to indent and sign your posts (with ~~~~) to make discussion easier to navigate. Organizing the "edit" links ... if that makes any sense. Paul, is there any way to get the edit links to show up properly, once a page is filled in and pics are added? If you look at the page for "Fembots in Las Vegas", this is a prime example. The "Edit" links for the first three topics ("Debrief", "Credits" and "Guest Stars") are all glommed together between "Credits" and "Guest Stars", and there's no way to really tell which link is for which topic. I personally find it really annoying, especially when I want to do some editing.— Grace (talk) 07:36, 27 February 2007 (UTC) :Hi, Grace. I've been noticing that, too. I'll check into it. — Paul (talk) 13:00, 27 February 2007 (UTC) Credit and Guest Star Presentation Oooooooookay... I'm thinking we're going to need to set up a fixed method of presenting the credits and guest star lists for the episodes. So far, I'm seeing four different versions - Doomsday Is Tomorrow (which is what I've been using so far, based on the setup by Scott), The Bionic Woman (episode), The Bionic Woman (Part II) and The Solid Gold Kidnapping. I have no objections to changing what I'm using - that is the nature of the Wiki, after all - but I do feel we need to make sure that everything matches up with everything else, otherwise it looks sloppy.— Grace (talk) 20:08, 25 February 2007 (UTC) :The Solid Gold Kidnapping along with the other two pilots), were tele-movies. There were no TV series back then and no guest stars. I would expect the credits format to be a little different until episode 1 of the first season "Population Zero" . --Agent X 20:25, 25 February 2007 (UTC) ::Grace, I agree. What version do you think best facilitates the information? Also, with regard to Mark's comment about the movies, is there a preference for how movie info is displayed as opposed to episode info? This is also a good opportunity to remind everyone that I still intend to move all trivia, deleted scenes, quotes, and other secondary information to each episode's deconstructed or disassembled page and add a production side-bar to each episode's main page. I'll unveil ithat stuff on the Doomsday Is Tomorrow pages when it looks right. — Paul (talk) 00:31, 27 February 2007 (UTC) :::Paul, truth be told, I actually like what MarkW (I think that's who did it) did on the The Return of the Bionic Woman page, as far as credits go - showing the production number, as well as the actual season#/episode# in parentheses beside the airdate, and then also showing who produced the episode (I don't think, however, that showing the executive producer is necessary, since most of the time it was Harve Bennett anyway). It will be a simple matter to fix things in the BW episodes once we decide on a format. :::When it comes to the list of guest stars in each episode, though, I do feel that it would be best to simply leave a dash between the actor's name and the character name, versus the word "as" in between ... to me, it looks a tad too redundant. Granted, the dash is redundant too, but at least it doesn't jump out of the page, screaming at you. But that is simply mho. Anyone else, feel free to jump in... :) :::As far as comparing how episode information looks, compared to movie information, I don't have any preference - yet. I'm just about done season three of BW (yay!!), and then I intend on working on the movies next - strictly for quotes and such, since that is my specialty... :) ... I won't know how I prefer things until I've had a chance to wade through things myself.— Grace (talk) 03:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC) top 250 Hey gang, just checking in to see how things are going. Thought I'd let you know that Bionic Wiki made it into the Top 250 list of Wikia wikis. Who knows where it will be in six months! As always, if there's anything you guys can't figure out, feel free to leave a comment on my talk page. I'm on Muppet Wiki every day and I'll see that I have a message for me here. Excelsior! —Scott (talk) 04:49, 22 February 2007 (UTC) :Awesome news! Thank you, Stan Lee! — Paul (talk) 23:37, 24 February 2007 (UTC) Episode order discrepancy Hey guys... I just wanted to confirm something... in the BW episode listing, the episode "All For One" is showing as airing before "Over the Hill Spy", but on TV.com, epguides.com and tvrage.com, I'm showing "Over the Hill Spy" as airing first. Can I get either: a) a correction done on the episode page, or b) a solid confirmation of which episode aired first?— Grace (talk) 07:11, 16 February 2007 (UTC) :Grace, as you've already received a response from Jim in the forum, I just wanted to at least acknowledge your post here. Also, Jim's own episode guide is a great source with which to cross-reference dates: The Bionic Woman Files Keep up the great work! — Paul (talk) 23:40, 20 February 2007 (UTC) ::Paul, that's great - thanks. Now, I don't suppose you could explain to me how to make the change on the actual category page for BW eps? I hit the "edit" tab on the top, and nothing comes up that I can change...— Grace (talk) 06:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC) :::Hi, Grace. Category pages work a bit differently than regular article pages. The reason you don't see any raw text when you click on the edit tab is because there's nothing there! Confused? So was I at first. The whole process of adding something to a category is a bit backward, but easy once you do it. :::The actual typing takes place in the episode page NOT the category page. Take a look at any episode's edit page. What do you see? If you're looking at my favorite episode Doomsday Is Tomorrow, for example, you see this link at the bottom: 213 :::This particular mark-up is what "inserts" Doomsday Is Tomorrow into the Bionic Woman category page. The first word Category tells the wiki what type of link it is. After the colon is Bionic Woman episodes which tells the wiki which category. Now here's the cool part: after the 'pipe' symbol (Shift-Backslash), you see the number 213 which stands for season number and episode number! By changing these numbers you can rearrange the episodes on the category page. :::Armed with this information, you should be able to adjust the episodes you want. Good luck! ;) — Paul (talk) 16:47, 21 February 2007 (UTC) ::::Yay!! Very kool ... thanks... :) — Grace (talk) 20:51, 21 February 2007 (UTC) new maintenance category and gallery feature Just wanted to point out the new category I created for maintenance here: Category:Orphaned Images. Its description should explain its function. It's worked out well for us at Muppet Wiki, so I hope it's helpful here. Also related to images, I thought I'd point out the tag which comes in handy for pages that have lots of images. An article looks funny when there are more images running down the side of the page without any text to fill in the white space it creates. Until such text is written (and detailed descriptions are encouraged), the gallery is a nice way of making the page more aesthetic. Check it out at Maskatron. — Scott (talk) 18:09, 30 January 2007 (UTC) :Should there be a time limit on how long we keep orphaned images? I mean, if they're just taking up space, shouldn't we delete them after a while? And hey!--I like that gallery mark-up! Although, I did sorta like the uniform stack on the right (it encouraged text to be filled in on the left, no?), I can see how a page with many images and little or no text is better served with a gallery -- as in the Maskatron example. — Paul (talk) 19:28, 30 January 2007 (UTC) ::Yeah, I think in the case of Maskatron, there's potentially very little text that can be added -- certainly not enough to fill up the white space that was there. w:c:muppet:The Statue of Liberty might be a better example. ::As for Orphaned Images, my unofficial rule on Muppet Wiki has been a few days. In reality, if someone hasn't used an image within a few hours of uploading it, then why upload it at all? It's assumed that when you upload an image, you intend to use it on a page. Otherwise The Bionic Wiki just becomes a dumping ground and we want to encourage actual content. — Scott (talk) 19:58, 30 January 2007 (UTC) Naming conventions for quote presentation And I'm going to start this with a big "gak"... I just had a horrible thought... all of the quotes I've entered so far (and the number is considerable) use first names only. Since we seem to have decided to use full names to start an episode and surnames during the rest of the episode, does this mean I'm going to have to go through all the quotes and change 'em? I hope not... :\ — Grace (talk) 09:51, 25 January 2007 (UTC) :Oh, wow, I didn't even catch that. I wouldn't worry about it, Grace. We'll convert the existing ones episode by episode. I suggest cutting and pasting the quote sections (from the edit tab, not the article tab--to preserve your mark-up) into a text editor and doing a Find and Replace on all names you want to change. Then cut and paste the new version back into the wiki. You'll be done in a snap. And with our help, they'll all be converted in no time. — Paul (talk) 13:47, 25 January 2007 (UTC) ::UPDATE: Okay, I went through about 13 episodes and changed the names. Check the log and review them for errors. I'll take another pass for more later. — Paul (talk) 17:40, 25 January 2007 (UTC) :::I'm going to be completely evil here... :)... I've been doing some poking around at some of the other TV show wikis, and I've noticed a trend. Those TV shows where the characters are referred to by their surnames tend to be those TV shows with an almost military feel to them, or where there is a definite command structure in place - ie. Star Trek, Stargate, etc. But if you look at shows like "24" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", they have no problem referring to the characters by their first names, because that's how they were known in the series. I suppose that's why I'm being such a pain about this - because both SMDM and BW are shows where the characters are known by their familiar names, not their surnames, and I hafta tell you guys - it's seriously bugging me having to refer to Jaime as "Sommers" and Steve as "Austin". So I'm hoping that people will perhaps give the idea some second thought regarding the use of the more familiar first names when writing their articles. If I'm outvoted on this one, then so be it - I'll bow to the majority... :)... but I'll definitely be bugged about it... :) — Grace (talk) 20:27, 25 January 2007 (UTC) ::::Okay, I'm running into some problems changing the quotes to the surname format - and the main one is that when you read the quotes, it sounds damned weird when "Sommers" says "Oscar, blah blah blah" and "Goldman" says "Jaime, blah blah blah". I, for one, vote that we at least leave the quotes as is. — Grace (talk) 07:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC) :::::I certainly don't have any objections to that. The quotes are presented in a less formal way than the remainder of an article. So sure, stick to the way you've been doing it. You've got my vote. :) — redrain85 (talk) 07:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC) ::::::(There are way too many single headers devoted the the name issue; I've consolidated the two most recent to bring some order back to it. In the future, unless the train of thought of an issue significantly changes, let's try to keep it all in one flow.) ::::::My opinion on the name issue hasn't changed: I think the tenor of the shows should guide our wiki. Only the primary characters should be by cited by their first names. All other characters, actors and other real people should be addressed by their surnames. I think we should vote on it and be done with it. — Paul (talk) 19:47, 30 January 2007 (UTC) I do agree on this - that is, to have a vote on this. However, how do we go about actually doing this? — Grace (talk) 20:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC) :I haven't been following this discussion, but in regards to how to set up a voting system, you're welcome to review our policy at Muppet Wiki and adopt it for your needs. — Scott (talk) 22:24, 30 January 2007 (UTC) ::I like the policy a lot, Scott. It's very concise and takes into account the fact that everyone is an individual with their own opinions. You said that I could adapt if for our needs, so that's exactly what I'm going to do, since it seems that I'm the one who has the most problem with the naming convention so far. — Grace (talk) 01:44, 31 January 2007 (UTC) How to present deleted scenes in the quotes ... I mean, after all, this part *is* my forte... :)... I just wanted to know how I should go about doing the above. Having had a chance to watch the first two seasons in glorious DVD *and* from grey-market discs, it's really easy to see what got cut on SciFi, and - as you might well imagine - a lot of what got cut were lines of dialogue. I'm just trying to figure out a way to indicate that "this particular line of dialogue got cut" in the quotes, if that makes any sense. Take a look at "Kill Oscar (Part III) and "Sister Jaime". I've tried two different ways (although the one for KO looks pretty messy to me), and the second way - well, since I do use italics to indicate an emphasis on a word, even italicizing an entire phrase looks kinda weird. This also means that however I indicate a cut line of dialogue, there is going to need to be a reference somewhere on the page indicating that that is what it is, if that makes any sense. I am completely open to suggestions on this one, because I'm at a loss right now. Otherwise, I'm going to continue on with my merry brand of mayhem here... :) — Grace (talk) 06:35, 24 January 2007 (UTC) :Okay, lemme know what you think... I wasn't sure if traditional HTML was usable within a wiki, but I discovered that some aspects of it are. So, in the "Sister Jaime" quotes, I've experimented with changing the colour of deleted text to red and green. Mind you, red is awfully close to that magenta sort-of colour that is used for links that aren't linked yet, so maybe I'll go with green. But in any event, lemme know what you think. — Grace (talk) 07:05, 24 January 2007 (UTC) ::Some good ideas, Grace. I would shy away from making any color changes as the color scheme of the wiki may change in the future. I would simply use an asterisk (*), brackets, italics (you can always underline a word to show emphasis), or parentheses: :::* Steve: Forget it. :::[Jaime: (eyes narrowing) Commander, can an Air Force officer aboard a Navy submarine give orders to a civilian who isn't listening to him anyway?] :::''Commander Gordon: Ah... leave me out of this, you two. We've got two suits up in the forward torpedo room. You decide what happens.'' :::(Jaime: (smugly gestures two for emphasis) Two suits.) ::— Paul (talk) 15:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC) :::That sounds good to me, Paul ... I'll go through what I've done already and fix things up. Personally, I like the suggestion of underlining emphasized words, and italicizing the cut dialogue. It's subtle, without being so subtle that people don't notice it. Having said that, what about a reference on the page somewhere, indicating that the italicized text is exactly that - cut dialogue. How would you suggest we go about doing that?? — Grace (talk) 03:13, 25 January 2007 (UTC) How to integrate the Reunion movies? I was thinking that for the main page, we could have a third column below the first two, in the center. The picture could be a snapshot from the "Return" movie with Steve and Jaime together, or even better it could be the publicity still where we see Steve and Jaime in wedding attire from "Ever After" (even if this would be something of a spoiler). Maybe someone could add a caption to the picture in a bionic-style font saying "Reunions" or "Reunion Movies" or something like that. What do you guys think? It would be pretty easy to complete these entries, fairly quickly, since they are pretty much standalone stories. — redrain85 (talk) 21:15, 21 January 2007 (UTC) :They're already integrated in Category:Six Million Dollar Man movies. Like you, I had originally thought to make them "top-level" categories. But then I reasoned: our platform for the wiki is the two episodic television series. The movies, be they parents (the 3 pilots) or products (the 3 reunions), are, in essence, removed from the two shows. (this reminds me to finish Jaime's sub-categories!) — Paul (talk) 06:58, 22 January 2007 (UTC) ::Oops! Yes, so they are already there. I completely overlooked them. My bad. And I guess you're right, they don't really need an entirely new top-level catgeory. But I will add them to the empty "Bionic Woman Movies" category then. — redrain85 (talk) 02:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC) Character name references in the episode guides It seems to me that I recall reading about this particular topic somewhere else, but damned if I can remember, so I'm going to bring it up again. Exactly how are we going to refer to the familiars when entering stuff into the episode guides? For example, are we going to refer to Jaime as "Jaime", "Jaime Sommers" or "Sommers"?? This also applies to Steve, Oscar and Rudy, since they're in practically every episode. Personally speaking, I prefer to use the familiar "Jaime" - "Jaime Sommers" sounds too formal and "Sommers" sounds too cold. That is, however, simply IMHO. — Grace (talk) 18:23, 21 January 2007 (UTC) :I've been using "Austin" and "Sommers" as a way of being very formal when I write the entries. I try to slip in a "Steve Austin" and "Jaime Sommers" now and then, to keep it from getting too monotonous. I prefer not to use "Steve" and "Jaime" because then the writing doesn't sound very formal. My take is that this is an encyclopedia (albeit an online one), so I'm writing the entries in such a way that they would look like they were written in one. But that's just me. — redrain85 (talk) 21:04, 21 January 2007 (UTC) :::Yeah, Scott and I addressed this (scroll down to: name references). Ha! It seems Scott and Rod come down on the formality ground while Grace and I have no problem using the first names of our prime cast. As much as it pains me to write, "Sommers races to stop the missile," I suppose it wouldn't kill me. ;) — Paul (talk) 07:18, 22 January 2007 (UTC) ::::Yeah, I've sorta been doing that myself... :) ... someone "fixed" a nitpick I'd entered for "The Jailing of Jaime" so it was more formal looking, so, reluctantly and begrudgingly, any further nitpicks I've been entering have been formal... ick... :) — Grace (talk) 08:40, 22 January 2007 (UTC) :::::Well you know what's funny, I just told Valor recently that I actually would prefer to write things in a more light-hearted tone, with humor and speculation interspersed. That was the way I wrote things on The Bionic Page. But, that wouldn't be appropriate for a Wiki. So if I have to suffer . . . ;) But seriously, I guess first name vs. surname is not a big deal. Mind you, it would be good if everyone wrote things in a consistent way. Otherwise, it will be strange to see one article use all first names while the next uses all surnames. — redrain85 (talk) 03:00, 23 January 2007 (UTC) ::::::Well, howzabout this... the first time we see a character's name in an entry, we could do Jaime Sommers, but if we have to use the name again further on into the entry, we can then go to Jaime, because it's obvious who we're referring to. — Grace (talk) 03:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC) Deleted scenes that can't be verified I have information for some supposedly deleted scenes in some episodes. The only trouble is, I cannot verify all of these. What I would like to do — for now — is include them anyway, but make a note in each case where it has not been verified. Is there any special convention or procedure for doing this? I haven't come across anything in the Wiki help files that advises on this, but then again I haven't dug that deeply yet. — redrain85 (talk) 05:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC) :Are these scenes that were deleted from original broadcast or from syndication? If the latter, we could resolve them before you post by checking the available UK discs (many of us have them). Moreover, do we want to cite from what syndication package we draw our comparisons? Cuts were left up to the buyer, so I'm sure they vary between big cable networks like from Sci-Fi Channel to local stations, both foreign and domestic. Is it really that important? Perhaps just knowing that a particular scene was cut is enough. — Paul (talk) 12:48, 20 January 2007 (UTC) ::That's the problem, I don't always know if the scenes were deleted from the original broadcast or in syndication. The majority of the cuts were done in syndication, but the status of a few are unknown to me. Regardless, my main concern is simply that I don't want to cite cuts that turn out to be hearsay — the figment of someone's imagination. I do have access to the episodes on DVD, and some of these deleted scenes I have heard about are still not there. My conclusion was to cite these deletions anyway — until proven to be incorrect, via a script — but place a note beside each one that has not been verified, stating as much. — redrain85 (talk) 15:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC) :::Understood. I say go for it. Gives us another reason to acquire scripts. And I think a simple, To Be Confirmed-type notation is all you need. — Paul (talk) 15:44, 20 January 2007 (UTC) ::::Okay, will do. :) I also asked for second opinions about the deleted scenes, in the Bionicfans discussion group. — redrain85 (talk) 18:00, 20 January 2007 (UTC) :::::In those cases, you can mark the questionable content with which will place them in Category:Active talk pages until a source can be found. This will let other active contributors who normally check that category know that information is needed on an article. — Scott (talk) 21:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC) ::::::Also, to see the template in action, look at the sandbox. — Scott (talk) 21:41, 20 January 2007 (UTC) :::::::Thanks, Scott. The citation template is exactly what I was looking for. I knew it existed, but didn't immediately find it in the help pages. Admittedly, I didn't try digging that deep. I'll do my best to keep learning the Wiki markup, though. :) — redrain85 (talk) 22:06, 20 January 2007 (UTC) Episode navigation I'm interested in hearing thoughts on the template I just placed on Welcome Home, Jaime (Part II). It's tricky because technically, there are no previous episodes in The Bionic Woman. But it would be remiss to not have some way of easily navigating throughout a story arc that goes over both shows. The problem is that if you're browsing on Welcome Home, Jaime and you want to naviagte to the next story, all of the following "next episodes" are going to be in The Bionic Woman. I was thinking maybe that the episode naviagtion template would be strict to the progression of each series separately, and that another story arc template could be used for special cases. Suggestions? — Scott (talk) 22:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC) :I just happened to notice it, and I personally think it's a very kool idea. I also agree with you that we should stick separately to each series separately, except for those multi-series story arcs that occasionally happen.— Grace (talk) 22:41, 18 January 2007 (UTC) ::I agree with your idea, Scott. That sounds like the best approach to handling navigation between episodes. Create templates that are native to each series, but create special ones for the exceptions where the shows crossed over. — redrain85 (talk) 23:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC) :::Sounds good. I know of three crossover stories: "Welcome Home, Jaime," "The Return of Bigfoot" and "Kill Oscar"; are there others? — Scott (talk) 23:39, 18 January 2007 (UTC) ::::Nope! You are correct, those were the only three crossovers. — redrain85 (talk) 00:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC) :::::Okay, I took care of the crossovers with separate templates since there are only three of them (easier that way). As for episode navigation for the rest of the series, if folks would like to start implementing that, you can see how it works at Template:Epnav and as always, feel free to ask questions. — Scott (talk) 01:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC) ::::::Whoohoo! — Paul (talk) 02:45, 19 January 2007 (UTC) Renamed Characters, how to handle the contradictions? I've noticed that a character entry for Dr. Dolenz has been added. This has got me thinking about how to handle characters that were renamed. In the case of Dolenz, he is referred to as "Jeffrey Dolenz" in Run, Steve, Run but this changes to "Chester Dolenz" in Return of the Robot Maker. And of course, "Barney Miller" in The Seven Million Dollar Man changes to "Barney Hiller" in The Bionic Criminal. I'm of the opinion that the latter references should be treated as canon. (But of course, we'll make a note that the names changed throughout the course of the show.) — redrain85 (talk) 23:41, 17 January 2007 (UTC) :Agreed. And we can make page redirects in case anyone types in the former. — Paul (talk) 03:15, 18 January 2007 (UTC) ::Something else I was wondering about. How reliable would everyone consider IMDB to be? Should we use it in the absence of hard proof (in the form of scripts, or possibly the novels), for character name details? Because sometimes the spellings for names on IMDB, are different than what we are currently listing. Best example: IMDB lists Tami Cross instead of Tammy Cross. — redrain85 (talk) 23:26, 18 January 2007 (UTC) :::I would consider IMDb not very reliable. We've pretty much banned its mention on Muppet Wiki :) However, it can sometimes serve as a starting point for research where materials are otherwise unavailable. But yeah, too many times has it been just flat out wrong. Unlike Wikipedia, there aren't nearly as many people fact-checking and it can take up to weeks for user submitted information to be add or corrected. — Scott (talk) 01:34, 19 January 2007 (UTC) ::::I've noticed that myself... the bad guy in the BW eps of SMDM is spelled as "Joseph Ronaugh" (which I have implemented, for lack of any other references), but on TV.com, it's spelled as "Joseph Wrona"... I have *no* idea which is correct, so I've used the IMDb one... — Grace (talk) 04:06, 19 January 2007 (UTC) :::::Does anyone in the Bionic fan circles have access to scripts or other such behind-the-scenes material? Also, some character names are listed inthe credits, but not always. — Scott (talk) 05:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC) ::::::Lots of them have scripts from eBay and conventions. In fact, I think someone is selling some right now--I'll have to check. Why don't you poll the forum and see if anyone can scan their copies? — Paul (talk) 12:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC) :::::::I've got a couple of scripts that I've picked up in the past month or so (they're up again on ebay - "Bionic Beauty" and "Sister Jaime"), so you don't need to go looking for those... unfortunately, that's not where my problem lies, as far as character name spelling goes... — Grace (talk) 01:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC) Guest Stars Here I come again... :)... I just wanted to know how we wanted to do the whole "Guest Stars" thing for each episode - just the names during the opening credits, or names during the closing credits as well, including the generic characters? I'm working on the BW eps of SMDM (still), and I'm going through the closing credits right now, and I'm wondering if I should be worrying about the characters such as "1st Nurse", "2nd Nurse" and "Attendant". I'm also wondering if we do decide to list these people, do we want to bother with links to elsewhere in the wiki for them, like we're doing right now for the major characters? IOW - should I bother with 1st Nurse or simply just "1st Nurse"... if that makes any sense... for right now, I'm just leaving them unlinked. — Grace (talk) 06:36, 17 January 2007 (UTC) :Great question, Grace! The template I'm developing for episode pages will have a section for full opening and closing credits. So, yes, indeed, "1st Nurse" will have her place on our Bionic Wiki. ;) — Paul (talk) 14:52, 17 January 2007 (UTC) ::If you're developing a template for the episodes Paul, might I suggest some headings? :) I was thinking of Trivia, Nitpicks, and Scenes Deleted In Syndication sections in addition to the others. Those are the areas I plan to contribute to the most, at the moment. — redrain85 (talk) 15:48, 17 January 2007 (UTC) :::Way ahead of you, Rod (or perhaps in lieu of you!) I was thinking of a header name that would encompass all of that. How about Deconstructed or Disassembled. Originally, I was going with the standards like, Production Notes but then figured we may want to use stylized headers reflective of the show. Another: instead of Summary how about Debrief? Just a thought. — Paul (talk) 17:14, 17 January 2007 (UTC) ::::I'll use generic headings for now, but I do like the idea of headings done in the style of the show. I'll try to use my imagination and get back to you with other suggestions. Though the ones you've suggested already sound good. :) — redrain85 (talk) 17:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC) Mass Contributions I have a question for you guys... I've started entering in quotes for the BW episode of SMDM, and I can already tell that it's going to be frickin' *massive*... I've got quotes coming out of my ears for the two episodes (although it looks like you've got it condensed down to one "movie"), which is going to double the size of the quote contribution. The problem, I'm finding, is just how unwieldy this is going to be. I've entered in seven quote passages, and bloody hell, what a mess. I've alluded to the problem with spacing before as well, which is also causing a bit of a problem with how the final product is presented. I must admit to being a little reluctant to enter anymore quotes in because of this problem. I am done with the quote passages for "Welcome Home, Jaime", so take a look at those, and what I've entered in for the BW ep, and lemme know if there's a way we can make them look more presentable.— Grace (talk) 04:49, 16 January 2007 (UTC) :*There are some tricks we could employ for very long sections of articles. One that immediately comes to mind is a "hide/show" javascript. This would allow only the first two or three quotes to be seen, initially. The visitor would then have the option to view more by clicking on a tag located near the header. :*Another idea is to use bullets for each line in a quote or block of dialogue (like I've done here with this whole reply). See the Help page here: http://bionic.wikia.com/wiki/Help:Wiki_markup :*You might also reconsider some of your quotes. Don't get me wrong, Grace, I think the ones you've shared with us are equitable. But I think what makes a memorable quote special is that it resonates with fans and stands apart from the rest. Too many, and we could lose the forest for the trees. :*And, speaking personally, I've never subscribed to the fairly recent IMDB mentality that a dialogue qualifies as a quote, per se. But that's just me.— Paul (talk) 15:09, 16 January 2007 (UTC) :::A show/hide feature might work well for quotes. You really don't want to inundate episode pages with quotes I wouldn't think. Especially where there aren't really any episode summaries yet. The wiki just starts to look like a collection of quotes. On Muppet Wiki we used to do quotes all over the place until we figured out how hugely subjective they are. What's funny or poignant to one, is not so much to another. But there might be a better compromise here that leads to a policy for the wiki about how and what to have in place for quotes. Perhaps a voting system or something. But then, there may be other more important things to spend time voting on. It's hard to tell at this point with the content still only slowly growing and the community being built. — Scott (talk) 17:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC) ::::I can deal with that - paring down what I've got, that is... however, that's still not going to solve the overall problem for sheer bulk. How exactly would this show/hide thingy work? Is there anything in the wiki help page that explains this? I didn't see anything myself... — Grace (talk) 20:38, 16 January 2007 (UTC) :::::On a related note: I would like to add trivia and nitpicks to the episode descriptions over time, which would also add quite a bit to their length. What are everyone's thoughts on this? — redrain85 (talk) 00:54, 17 January 2007 (UTC) ::::::My recommendations to all would be to add everything you've got to any article at this point. The wiki's current infancy is the perfect time to chuck a bunch of stuff up on the drawing board, and see what sticks. The sticking of course will be a combination of how things look all put together and the view from the community in retrospect. So yeah, do now and ask later I'd say. — Scott (talk) 02:25, 17 January 2007 (UTC) :::::::Alrighty... you asked for it ... :) — Grace (talk) 02:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC) ::::::::Scott took the words right out of my mouth. I say add it all! Later we can step back and see what works and what doesn't. As for formatting and design -- we'll address those issues as we go along. Can you hear that?--it's the crackling of creativity in the air! ;) — Paul (talk) 03:07, 17 January 2007 (UTC) Episode Titles There's a really super-picky English teacher part of me that would like to see a slight change in how the episode titles are presented right now. I don't want to see articles as a episode header - for example, "The Vega Influence" should be presented as "Vega Influence, The". This'll make things easier for alphabetization purposes - otherwise I think we're going to find a logjam of episodes starting with "The". As I said - just call me picky ... :) — Grace (talk) 05:44, 12 January 2007 (UTC) :Hey, we love super-picky English teacher-y parts of people! Especially on a wiki. My spellcheck is my friend! ;) Ironically, I was giving this very idea some thought as I saw Scott busily updating the episode lists (thanks, Scott!). :Ultimately my feeling is this: category type should inform the spelling of the content. All the episode guides, which I've examined, that are categorized by airdate (my personal preference), or production date, both definite and indefinite articles in the titles remain unchanged. I think this should be true of our wiki. :However, if it's easy to do (Scott?) I think an alphabetical list should also be created. I'm sure there are many fans who know the title of an episode but can't remember in which season it aired. Alphabetized episode lists were made for these moments! In this case, I absolutely agree that all articles should be re-placed. -- Alex7000 13:52, 12 January 2007 (UTC) ::Hi, Grace! Paul's right, it's great to have super-nitpicky English-teacher types on a project like this. Right now, the episodes in Category:Bionic Woman episodes are ordered by airdate. If you look at the edit tab of any episode page, you can see how this numbering system was achieved. Basically, the wiki software allows for articles to be ordered in the categories by any method we want. For example, look at Category:Bionic Woman characters and you'll see that Jaime Sommers is alphabetized under S''' rather than J. Again, you can look at the code under the edit tab on her page to see how that was done. — Scott (talk) 14:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC) :::Okay, take a look at Category:Bionic Woman episodes now (you may have to hit Refresh)... there's an alphabetical list linked at the beginning of the category. — Scott (talk) 14:14, 12 January 2007 (UTC) Spoiler and Non-Spoiler Summaries There is simply no possible way to avoid spoilers in the episode summaries. Nor should we try--I think an encyclopedia should contain the most detailed and spoilerific summaries one can find. However, I think a good idea is to have brief non-spoiler summaries, too. Call it a teaser. Enough info to excite a reader. And then if she wants to continue to the meat, she can. -- Alex7000 14:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :I like the way Memory Alpha does it (on their fleshed out episode pages anyway). Each page begins with a brief summary of what the episode is about, then a more detailed one follows under an appropriately named header. Wikipedia has a spoilers template to caution against reading things you may not want to, but they're wikipedia and have millions of contributors and readers. Bionic Wiki, like Muppet Wiki, is going to have a much smaller target, and it's easier to establish that episode pages are going to have spoilers. In other words, when someone comes here, it should be understood that there will be spoilers. For example, Josh Lang is just a short article right now. But doing his biography justice would include writing everythign we know about him, including his fate at the end of the episode. Avoiding spoilers is limiting in this capacity, but I think it's a given that the end of any such long article is going to include what happens. I'm probably babbling now and not making sense. — Scott (talk) 17:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC) ::Actually, I like what you've done. Those few sentences you wrote for those particular episodes are perfect teasers. They're a good example of what I'm talking about. Alex7000 18:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC) Members vs. Articles Why are items within in categories referred to as 'members'?--why not 'articles' or 'items'? -- Alex7000 14:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :I'm not sure what you mean. At Category:Active talk pages, I see them referred to as subcategories and articles. — Scott (talk) 17:31, 11 January 2007 (UTC) ::Look at the list that loads when you click on Category Index. Alex7000 18:27, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :::Oh, that one. Um... I don't know. — Scott (talk) 18:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC) Wiki Name Change? Brainstorm: '''Bionipedia! Just a thought... -- Alex7000 14:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :Sounds fun, that's entirely up to you as the founder :) — Scott (talk) 17:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC) name references So as to be consistent throughout the pages here, is there a preference as to how we want to reference character names in an article? For example, on Jaime Sommers, I've already started saying "Sommers did this... and Sommers did that." I would strongly recommend the last name be used in regard to performers in this encyclopedic context, but for characters, would it feel better to say "Steve did this... and Jaime did that...."? Thoughts? — Scott (talk) 06:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :Oh, absolutely! Surnames should always be used when citing actors or any real person. Using the familiar for the characters I don't have a problem with. I know I'll be calling them Steve & Jaime and Oscar and Rudy, etc. We should also allow the tone of the show or episode to inform our citations; I would never refer to Dr. Franklin as Carl! And I would never refer to Callahan as Peggy or Margaret. -- Alex7000 13:37, 11 January 2007 (UTC) Characters category So, I have a few ideas on how to handle the categories for characters. The simplest way would be to create a category called Characters, and drop everyone into it. If we want to be more specific and allow for easier browsing, we could place BW characters into a Bionic Woman characters category and 6M$M characters into another with both of those existing as sub-categories to Characters. That specificity would then leave us with open options as to where we can put characters that were exclusive to the TV movies (and other sources -- were there comic books and novels?). Or, such non-specific characters could just go into the main Characters category. Alternatively, for example, we could put Josh Lang into Six Million Dollar Man characters AND the main characters category so they could be found either way. If that's what we decide, then naturally 6M$M wouldn't continue to be a sub-category to Characters, as it would be pointless. That's the way we do it on Muppet Wiki: Kermit is categorized under Muppet Characters AND Muppet Show Characters AND Sesame Street Characters. Thoughts? — Scott (talk) 22:20, 10 January 2007 (UTC) : So basically the choices are: :# One top-level category containing a huge list. :# One top-level category containing multiple sub-categories. :# Multiple top-level categories. :Well, there's really no difference between option 2 and 3. If the same character appears in both shows, we still have to list them in each category (like you did with Kermit). With the Bionic shows it doesn't happen all that often, so I'd vote for the sub-categories. And you're right, we could then have sub-cats for the comics, movies, toys, books, etc. --Alex7000 23:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC) ::That sounds logical. So, would we put Kate Mason in TV Movies characters, or something different which combined characters from other sources? — Scott (talk) 23:22, 10 January 2007 (UTC) :::Yes. But I don't think we need "Tv Movies" as a sub of Characters. I think the name of the movie would suffice right alongside the names of the two shows -- does that make sense? So under the main heading of Characters, we would have "The Bionic Woman," The Six Million Dollar Man," "The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman," "Bionic Showdown," and "Bionic Ever After." What say you? -- Alex7000 14:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC) ::::So, Category:The Return of the Six Million Dollar Man and the Bionic Woman characters? It's a bit long IMO, but it's specific. — Scott (talk) 17:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :::::And what's wrong with a long category name? ;) We could shorten it but still keep it formal. Like, "Return Of (1987)" Alex7000 18:33, 11 January 2007 (UTC) ::::::Nothing! A wiki is not, after all, paper :) — Scott (talk) 18:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC) :::::::I recently submited an article about "Fembots" and will soon write one on the Venus Probe. Those articles hardly classify as "characters". Should we add a new catagory and name it "technology" or something to that effect ? Mark